This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Track backer pads and road wheel tires for tracked vehicles are currently fatigue tested primarily on the tracked vehicle itself. The tracked vehicle is equipped with the specified track backer pads and/or road wheel tires and the tracked vehicle is then driven through a representative fatigue course for a specified number of miles or a specified number of cycles through the representative fatigue course.
Testing these components using the actual vehicle requires producing an entire track of track pitches which is very expensive and time consuming for experimental components. Once fitted on the actual vehicle, the test vehicle has to be driven around the representative fatigue course causing additional expense. While the actual use of a test vehicle is a realistic test, the testing is subjective and not repeatable because the actual vehicle test can be affected by the weather, the representative fatigue course deterioration, the driver and the other components on the tracked vehicle.
Some shortened tracks are tested by being run on track-dynamometers but the use of a track dynamometer requires most of the track to be constructed and then requires a significant amount of energy to operate the track dynamometer. Some simplistic fatigue tests are run on individual components using hydraulic test machines but these simplistic tests do not apply representative stresses and strains to test the specimen in the loading characteristics the specimen would receive when in an actual vehicle.